Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, accuses the British government of being 'naïve, confused and unrealistic' in its approach to his country. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Assad rejects the notion that the UK may help bring an end to the civil war, complaining arming rebel fighters will only heighten violence. William Hague and John Kerry have both promised to assist anti-Assad rebels in Syria with aid and equipment

As with Burhan Ghalioun’s similar visit last year, this is the first arrival on Syrian soil of a significant Syrian political figure who is completely outside of the Assad regime’s orbit. For Syrians this is something that has not been seen in over forty years.

But this fleeting appearance is far from enough. The areas outside of the regime’s control are in desperate need of basic services and the governance needed to administer them.

If the Syrian opposition does not start forming this basic infrastructure in these areas then it risks two things, losing even more credibility on the ground and exacerbating the fragmentation of the country. An opposition government in the liberated areas will give people the hope that the regime seeks to deny, a hope that life could one day get back to normal and that this revolution will succeed.

The opposition is hoping to establish a shadow government in northern Syria, but it postponed a planned meeting scheduled last week aimed at selecting an interim prime minister.

Part of the $60m US aid package announced last week by secretary of state John Kerry is aimed at establishing a shadow government in rebel-controlled areas.

Announcing the funds Kerry said: "As the regime continues to lose ground these funds will also help the opposition forces and political leaders be able to extend stability as well as build representative government and the rule of law, and extend that rule of law to newly-liberated areas."

Assad transcript

Dialogue only with ‘loyal’ opposition

We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists; we fight terrorism.

Opposition groups should be loyal and patriotic to Syria – internal and external opposition is not about the geographic position; it is about their roots, resources and representation. Have these roots been planted in Syria and represent Syrian people and Syrian interests or the interests of foreign government? So, this is how we look at the dialogue, this is how we started and how we are going to continue.

Britain trying to arm terrorists in Syria

The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria, knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria; we all know that we are now fighting Al-Qaeda or Jabhat al-Nusra which is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, and other groups of people indoctrinated with extreme ideologies. This is beyond hypocritical ...

The problem with this government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlight this tradition of bullying and hegemony. I am being frank. How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarize the problem? How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better and more stable, how can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists and don’t try to ease the dialogue between the Syrians.

The Free Syrian Army

The Free Syrian Army is just the headline, the umbrella that is used to legitimize these [terrorist] groups.

Conditions for dialogue

We are ready to negotiate with anyone including militants who surrender their arms. We are not going to deal with terrorists who are determined to carry weapons, to terrorize people, to kill civilians, to attack public places or private enterprises and destroy the country.

The death toll of 70,000 people

These numbers do not exist in reality; it is part of their virtual reality that they want to create to push forward their agenda for military intervention under the title of humanitarian intervention.

Al-Qaida

Al-Qaida’s ideologies flourish where there is ignorance. Ideologically, they try to infiltrate the society with their dark, extremist ideologies and they are succeeding.If you want to worry about anything in Syria, it is not the ‘minorities.’ This is a very shallow description because Syria is a melting pot of religions, sects, ethnicities and ideologies that collectively make up a homogeneous mixture, irrelevant of the portions or percentages ...

We are the last bastion of secularism in the region.

Chemical weapons

Everything that has been referred to in the media or by official rhetoric regarding Syrian chemical weapons is speculation. We have never, and will never, discuss our armaments with anyone. What the world should worry about is chemical materials reaching the hands of terrorists.

Israeli air strikes

Retaliation does not mean missile for missile or bullet for bullet. Our own way does not have to be announced; only the Israelis will know what I mean.

Assad's own future

This question reflects what has been circulating in the Western media about personalizing the problem in Syria and suggesting that the entire conflict is about the president and his future. If this argument is correct, then my departure will stop the fighting. Clearly this is absurd and recent precedents in Libya, Yemen and Egypt bear witness to this ...

No patriotic person will think about living outside his country. I am like any other patriotic Syrian.

Alleged war crimes

When people defend their country, they do not take into consideration anything else.

Marie Colvin's killing

It is always sad when a journalist is killed because they are not with either side or even part of the problem, they only want to cover the story.

There is a media war on Syria preventing the truth from being told to the outside world. 14 Syrian journalists who have also been killed since the beginning of the crisis and not all of them on the ground ...

It is important to enter countries legally, to have a visa. This was not the case for Marie Colvin. We don’t know why and it’s not clear. If you enter illegally, you cannot expect the state to be responsible ...

Contrary to popular belief, since the beginning of the crisis, hundreds of journalists from all over the world, including you, have gained visas to enter Syria and have been reporting freely from inside Syria with no interferences in their work and no barriers to fulfill their missions.

Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin was killed in the central Syian city of Homs in February 2012. Photograph: AP

Updated at 12.15pm GMT

10.49am GMT

Transcript of Hague's comments

We will be giving more assistance to the opposition. And I will announce in Parliament this week what that will consist of. It will involve more equipment to try to help save lives in Syria, because 70,000 - it may be a lot more now - have been killed in the conflict principally by the Assad regime. So we will be doing more and will have to steadily do more faced with this situation, because the longer this goes on, the greater the danger that extremism takes hold, the greater the danger of destabilising neighbouring countries ... and the greater the extreme humanitarian distress involved. We cannot sit on the sidelines and watch those things.

We will be doing more and we have to steadily do more if there is no diplomatic breakthrough. The situation is too dangerous to the peace and security of that entire region, and thereby of the world, to ignore it.

We will continue to give enormous amounts to relieve humanitarian distress but we have to do more to assist the opposition on the ground.

I will not be announcing this week, arms to the Syria opposition. We have agreed in the European Union amendments to the arms embargo to allow us to send a wider range of non-lethal equipment that will do more to save lives and a wider range of technical assistance and advice.

I don’t rule out anything for the future. If this is going to go on for months, or years, and more tens of thousands of people are going to die, and countries like Iraq and Lebanon and Jordan are going to be destabilised, it is not something we can ignore.

If ever we get into that situation [of supplying weapons to the opposition] the risks of arms falling into the wrong hands is one of the great constraints. And it is one of the reasons we don’t do it now. But these things are a balance of risk. You can reach consensus eventually when humanitarian need is so great and the loss of life is so great that you have to do something new to save lives. That’s why I don’t rule it out in the future.

Asked about Assad’s comments about British ‘bullying’ tactics on Syrian, Hague said:

This is a man presiding over this slaughter. The message to him is that we Britain are the people sending food and shelter and blankets to help people driven from their home in his name.

I think this will go down as one of the most delusional interviews that any national leader has given in modern times.

We have to do what we can to save lives – lives that he is bringing to a terrible end. We will never waver in trying to seek a diplomatic and political solution to the situation in Syria. He has now had two years to sit down in real dialogue and has refused every opportunity to do so. Even though the opposition national coalition leader Mr al-Khatib bravely offered direct dialogue with the Assad regime.

There isn’t a military-only solution to the situation in Syria. The Russian foreign minister [Sergei Lavrov] will be here in London in the next 10 days and we will have another major discussion about Syria to see whether we can make some diplomatic breakthrough but there is no sign of that at the moment. Hence we have to do more to try to protect civilian life in Syria and in neighbouring countries.

British foreign secretary William Hague with US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Syrian opposition lead Moaz al-Khatib at last Thursday's Friends of Syria meeting in Rome. Photograph: Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images

9.54am GMT

Hague on Assad

Britain's foreign secretary William Hague has dismissed Assad's criticism of Britain's attempts to arm the Syrian opposition as "delusional".

Speaking to the BBC's Marr show, Hague said Assad was the man presiding over the slaughter of his own people while Britain was providing humanitarian aid.

"This will go down as one of the most delusional interviews that any national leader has given in modern times," Hague said of Assad's remarks to the Sunday Times.

Hague confirmed that Britain would be giving details later this week of further assistance for the Syrian opposition. He said the package would not include arms, but he said this may be considered in future.

"We will have to do more to assist the opposition on the ground," Hague said.

9.35am GMT

Egypt

The retrial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak will take place next month, Egypt's appeals court has announced. The trial will start on 13 April, according to the state news agency Mena, Reuters reports.

Mubarak is in a military hospital. In January a Cairo court granted him the retrial after he was jailed for life over the killing of protesters in early 2011 by security forces trying to quell the uprising against him.

"Samir Abu el Maati, the head of the Appeals Court has set April 13 as the retrial date for former President Hosni Mubarak, his two sons Gamal and Alaa and his interior minister Habib el-Adly and six of his top aides ... on charges of killing of protesters during the January 25th revolution," Men state news agency said.

Mubarak, 84, was ousted in February 2011 after 30 years in power and was the first Arab ruler to be brought to court by his own people.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in court during his first trial on charges of failing to prevent the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ousted him. Photograph: STR/EPA

9.28am GMT

No fly-zone

Former Labour minister Clare Short has backed the implementation of a no-fly zone over Syria.

Short, who eventually resigned as international development secretary over the Iraq war, was discussing Assad’s criticism of Britain’s attempts to arm Syrian rebels. Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Short said no-fly zones was an alternative to arming the opposition.

“I think we should look at the no-fly zone and much better help for the refugees,” Short said.

She also backed opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib’s offer of conditional dialogue with the members of the Assad regime.

“We should get behind Brahimi in getting some talks, or this could go for years and years,” Short said.

The problem with this [British] government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlights this tradition of bullying and hegemony. How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role when it is determined to militarise the problem? How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better, more stable? How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supply to the terrorists and don't try to ease the dialogue between the Syrian(s).

The Syrian Coalition awaits an explanation from the Iraqi Government, as well as expects the Iraqi’s to launch an investigation to bring the perpetrators of this violent attack to justice.

Iraqi police stand guard during foot patrol at Rabia, near the main border between Iraq and Syria on Saturday. Clashes between the Syrian army and rebels at a border post brought the civil war close to neighbouring Iraq, where troops fired warning shots into the air. Photograph: Stringer/Iraq/Reuters